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Alex Ellis
Alex Ellis is an elevator photographer from Wellington, New Zealand. His channel is titled "The ALEX ELLIS Channel". History Alex Ellis is an English elevator filmer living in Wellington, New Zealand. Alex is currently studying History, English Literature and Philosophy at Victoria University of Wellington for a Bachelor of Arts degree (as part of his path to becoming a teacher). He started filming elevators in 2011 and opened his YouTube channel on September 14, 2012, inspired by the works of Dieselducy. Alex mainly films Lifts and Buses, and also makes Lift Tours. In April 2013 he started creating few animated elevator videos, but has stopped since they fell out of fashion. In December 2014/2015, Alex went overseas to Hong Kong, the UK and Singapore and filmed lifts there. Despite being a keen Elevator Enthusiast, Alex was afraid of Lifts at a young age until he got over his fear and went on to become an enthusiast. Alex has Asperger's Syndrome, which is the main reason for his interest in Lifts. As a student, Alex still doesn't find as much time for filming lifts as he'd like. He also struggle's to find new lifts to film nowadays as he has been to most of the shopping centre's and Car Parks in Wellington CBD, and the surrounding areas. Despite this, he is hoping for some new lifts to eventually be installed. He also plans to go further afield in the future to other New Zealand cities such as Auckland and Christchurch. Alex is currently working on a wiki about New Zealand's elevators called New Zealand Elevator Guide Wikia In November 2017, Alex spent a week in the Pacific Island of Samoa, and filmed a few lifts there, as well as filming the lifts in an Airport Hotel at Auckland Airport. In January 2018, he visited Auckland for one week. Alex & his family are currently planning a possible trip to the UK in 2019. Nothing is booked yet, and no formal plans have yet been made. If this trip goes ahead, it will include a stopover. No choice on where to stop has been made, but the current favourite is Hong Kong (if they do go there, they want to try and get on the Airbus A350). As of April 2019, Alex has the most subscribers of all lift-related channels in New Zealand (just over 2500), but his channel has been struggling to get views, mainly because of his refusal to monetize. It is expected that Alex's friend, the rapidly growing NZLifts (1900 subs), will overtake him within the next 12-18 months. Camera History Former Cameras: *2012-2013: rather rubbish Fujifilm - He had two of these, both broke. *2013-2016: Samsung ES90 - Nice camera used mostly for photos. Was also used for update videos and as a back up. Sadly died in September 2016 *2014-2015: Huawei Smart Phone (back-up camera used only for a couple of bus videos) *2016: Mum's Samsung ES90. Same as the one that died...borrowed it for two weeks whilst finding a replacement. Current Cameras: * 2013-Present: Sony CX190E Camcorder - Main Camera used for most of his videos. * 2016-Present: Samsung Galaxy J2 (back-up camera only). * 2016-Present: Nikon Coolpix A300. Brand new camera as a replacement for the dead ES90. Mainly a photography camera, and videos are filmed with the Sony CX190E still. Trivia *His channel is the largest elevator channel in New Zealand. *Alex is infamous for his catchphrase "Bloody Schindler" * In 2014-2015 he went overseas and filmed Lifts in Hong Kong, Singapore and the UK. * In 2017, he filmed lifts in Samoa. * Alex has collaborated with NZ Lifts on three occasions, and has expressed interest in doing so again in future. *He was born in London, United Kingdom, and moved to New Zealand in 2007. *He also films other things too, mainly Buses and Level Crossings, as well as many other interesting things. *His favorite elevator is the KONE Ecodisc. *Like MelvinMan10 and TG97Elevators, He is also a very cautious person and therefore he rarely films elevators in high rise office buildings for security reasons, even though he is able to get into an office building. This is because of the "open plan" design of most buildings making it too easy to be caught. *He rarely rides service lifts that are not for public use, though there have been exceptions. *In 2015 Alex received his first (and currently only) Elevator component - A full-size Schindler M-Series COP. This came out of an old Express lift (modernized by Schindler in the 90's) at Moore Wilson's in Wellington CBD. This has been replaced with a new, larger, Schindler 5500 MRL. *He was born at the same day (but different year) with Thai elevator filmer Oak TheElevator Hunter. Other Interests Alex has LOTS of other interests besides elevators, here is a list of some of them: * Buses - Alex has a wide variety of bus-related videos online, and a Facebook Page dedicated to New Zealand public transport. * Level Crossings - Despite not having much to do with trains, Alex has an interest in Level Crossing Equipment. He quite often films them in action. * Sirens - Alex has an interest in Mechanical Air-Raid style sirens, especially New Zealand Fire Callout & Civil Defense Sirens and the Broadmoor Hospital Sirens. * Fire Alarms: Alex has a bit of an interest in Fire Alarms, which has grown somewhat more since 2018. He is mostly interested in Manual Call Points. Alex doesn't make many Fire Alarm related videos. * Old Buildings - Like with lifts, Alex is very fond of old style architecture from 60's-70's and Older (the older the better). * Airliners - Alex loves airliners, but isn't able to have much involvement with them. He has a lot of favorites, but primarily they are: Airbus A320, Boeing 777, Airbus A380, Boeing 787, Airbus A350 and ATR 72. * Ro-Ro Ferries. Alex Enjoys sailing on the Interislander Ferry! He has posted videos from onboard vessels' Kaitaki and now retired Arahura. Other Adventures Outside of YouTube, Alex has helped to Edit the Elevatorpedia Wiki and Elevator Community Wiki. He also set up his own wiki, New Zealand Elevator Guide Wikia, which is currently under construction. Outside of the elevator world, Alex runs a Facebook Page, Bus & Transport Enthusiasts NZ, as well as a Flickr Account, The ALEX ELLIS Channel. He is also an editor and contributor of the New Zealand Bus database website, BusInfoNZ. With the assistance of mrmattandmrchay, he created a wiki about the Broadmoor Hospital Sirens. On YouTube, Alex starred as the weatherman in his secondary school (Tawa College) Web Series, TC News. His role included political jokes, fashion, injury and general banter. TC News is made by the Year 13 students and is refreshed with a new cast each year. Alex featured in 8 out of 9 episodes, and well as one episode of TC News EXTRA. Alex also made the video thumbnails & channel art for 2016. Alex edited most of his own segments, as well as two episodes of TC News EXTRA. In 2014, Alex helped shoot and edit a short film with the Tawa College Film club. The film, which was limited to one minute long, was for a competition about why wellington was important to the youth. The film came third in the competition. The club took a break after this film to study for exams and, due to unforeseen circumstances, Alex did not rejoin in 2015. Some of the clips from this project were included in Alex's 28 minute documentary, "Welcome to Wellington", which he made with his father in 2014 to show his family back in the UK. In December 2016, Alex started a second channel called "THE ALEX VLOG". On this new Channel, Alex makes Vlogs as well as tourism videos about Wellington in his series "Wellington Wonders". On this channel, he brought back the "Weatherman" character from his days on TC News. In 2018, this channel was re-branded "BRITISH KIWI" (owning to his UK background and NZ residence), and now only posts Educational and Tourist videos on the channel. Alex passed his restricted license driving test in July 2018, which has since allowed him to expand his adventures to new locations, and has thus enabled him to film new things External links *YouTube Channel * Bus & Transport Enthusiasts NZ (Non-Elevator related) Category:Elevator filmers from New Zealand